Surrogate Mother Needed For World’s First Cloned Neanderthal Baby

Would you be willing to give birth to a cloned Neanderthal (soon to be a possibility)? And could you love him/her? Gawker writes:

Are you an adventurous human woman? Adventurous enough to be a surrogate mother for the first Neanderthal baby to be born in 30,000 years? Harvard geneticist George Church recently [said] he’s close to developing the necessary technology to clone a Neanderthal, at which point all he’d need is an “adventurous human woman” to act as a surrogate mother.

What would that entail? Neanderthal birth was simpler than human birth, because Neanderthal infants didn’t have to rotate to get to the birth canal, but otherwise the processes were very similar. Once the baby’s out, you’re in good shape — Neanderthal babies are thought to have grown much more quickly than their human counterparts.

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according to Church, that’s not exactly what he said, the Boston Herald reports:

He blames a mistake in an article he says was written off an interview in the German magazine Der Spiegel, badly misinterpreting what he said — that such a cloning might theoretically be possible someday — and arriving at the conclusion that he was actively looking for a woman to bear a cave baby with DNA scavenged from ancient Neanderthal bones. He suggested poor translation skills may be part of the problem.

“I’m certainly not advocating it,” Church said. “I’m saying, if it is technically possible someday, we need to start talking about it today.”

Good reference. Good movie. I saw it. I endorse it.
“Heart of Gold” baby.

BuzzCoastin

I’m pretty sure at least 80% of “humanity”
is mostly Neanderthal, with a little Cro-Magnon DNA for spice

kowalityjesus

will certain people be embarrassed when the neanderthal looks like them? Will this being be given full rights and protection under the law as accorded to homo sapiens sapiens? if so, will sasquatch eventually be accorded the same? lol

The news-consumer mainstream misinterpreted what he said to Spiegel, so he could make a denial of the misinterpretation. The fact still remains, as Spiegel wrote: “[Church] represents a guild that is prepared to try out anything that can be done, unconditionally,” and further:

Eventually, an “adventurous female human” needs to be found as a surrogate mother for the first Neandertal baby, Church is cited as saying, and, from many individuals, “a kind of Neandertal culture” could arise that could gain “political significance.”Church doesn’t understand “why many people should be so profoundly upset by these kinds of technologies,” since the concept of biological species is currently changing anyway. Up until now, the notion has been that people cannot exchange DNA with other biological species. “But this barrier will fall,” he says.

So: is Church currently looking for a surrogate mother for the world’s first cloned neanderthal baby?

As such, literally: no.

But in spirit, he and other private researches absolutely are of that mindset. So, in spirit and in effect: yes.

echar

This makes me think of the movie Splice. I wouldn’t put it past people to attempt doing this.